


Death

by seleneheart



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: Gen, Possibly Unrequited Love, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seleneheart/pseuds/seleneheart
Summary: Rood has a rival he cannot defeat





	Death

The battle seemed never-ending . . . he was fighting men that had died already, and he knew fear for the first time in his life. He had always been too curious to be properly afraid, but he learned it in the heat of battle.

When the tower fell, and then when he felt the land-instinct waken in him, grief nearly ended his life. Knowing that Duac had died, leaving him the land-heir of An, staggered him and he nearly failed to block the sword thrust from a man with the restless sea in his eyes.

But his greatest grief came when Morgon found them, the surviving land-rulers. When Rood saw what was in Morgon’s eyes, the unfathomable grief and longing for someone . . . for something that was gone forever, Rood knew that he had lost Morgon in a way he had not anticipated, for all his clever planning.

He had accepted that he and his sister both loved Morgon, and that Morgon loved them both, three players in the game that Rood devised, yet still each person understood their role. Rood only, perhaps, of the three of them, had seen the complete situation.

Or he thought he had, until the Realm had learned that Morgon’s destiny was far greater than any of them had dreamed. But Rood had not foreseen Deth.

Now, it was clear that Morgon had given his heart wholly over to the silver-haired harpist, so familiar to them all, yet a stranger who had given Morgon his heart’s desire and taken it from him minutes later on the blade of the starred sword.

And Rood could not fight Deth . . . his cynical mind twisted at the implications of the name. Morgon belonged to the Earth Master who had given him the land-law of the Realm and then died in Morgon’s arms.

Deth . . . death.


End file.
